Too Close to Home
Because of the sovereignty of God and how God has made me, I have no problem asking strangers about who they believe Jesus to be. I’ve even looked for people of other faiths on the street to talk with them about God and the Bible. But when it comes to talking to my family about faith? I’ve had my challenges.
I remember the first family reunion I went to after I became a Christian. Now you gotta know, I was wild and unruly before I gave my life to Christ. I used to smoke so much weed, my body had become unfamiliar with sobriety. But when God saved my soul, he took that addiction away and crucified it with Jesus on the cross. In fact, I changed so much after becoming a Christian that it started to freak out some of my family members—especially my cousin Lil Ron.
Lil Ron and I were really close growing up. We were more like brothers than cousins. But when I gave my life to Christ, our relationship became muddy. I don’t think Lil Ron knew where I stood with him anymore.
He would ask me questions like “So, P, now that you a Christian, if a bunch of dudes were to show up right now and start something, would you ride for me?”
I told him, “Listen, cuzzo, if you were getting beat up, you know I would help protect you. But I ain’t gonna go out there and ride with you no more or fight people like I used to.”
And, man, that did not sit well with him. “You serious? Cuz, we your family! God ain’t gonna be upset with you if you just defending your family.”
At the time, I was torn. I couldn’t find the words to explain how much doing the things I used to do would be me returning to the grave after Jesus did to my soul what he did to Lazarus’s body. How he told death to let me go and called me to rise up from it. All I could think to say was “Cuz, I hear you. I just don’t pursue a lifestyle that dishonors God anymore.” I could feel Lil Ron’s distaste. Lil Ron felt like I was choosing the family of God over my blood family. Yeah, our family was born with the same blood, but this new family I had in Christ was bought with blood far more valuable.
After I saw how Lil Ron reacted, I kind of avoided talking about my faith with my family and close friends because I was afraid it might make them feel uncomfortable, and a big part of me was afraid of being rejected. Here I was, bold lion in the faith with strangers, but around my family, I shrank and became a passive gnat, not wanting to be seen.
When I was thirteen, on one tragic night on the south side of Chicago, a bullet missed a crowd of folks and landed in my uncle’s skull. I remember his funeral like it was this morning. That day was dark, and he was a still night star in a casket. My uncle was only thirty-one years young, and his life was gone because of some reckless man and his bullet.
Over the next several days, our entire family descended on my grandmother’s house to grieve and to support one another. Five days straight, everyone just walked around in shock, crying, and my grandmother was really struggling. Then one morning, my grandmother said to my mom, “I need to go into my room, lock the door, and get before the Lord. I don’t want anything to eat, I don’t want anything to drink, and I don’t want any company. I just want to be by myself for one whole day—just me and the Lord.”
And with that, she walked into her bedroom, closed the door, and stayed there for twenty-four hours. And then the strangest thing happened. The next morning, it’s hard to explain with words, but she just looked different. She came out of her room like a new song, smiling and going around the house comforting and praying for everyone. Man, I’d never seen anything like it. I didn’t get it . . . but I’ll tell you this: whatever it was she found in that room, it filled me with wonder.
From that day on, anytime something bad happened or something was bothering me, I looked to my grandmother. She never pushed her faith on me, told me I needed to repent, or asked me where I stood with God. She would just pray for me and encourage me and talk about her own relationship with God. I didn’t fully understand where she was coming from, but I liked the way I felt when I was around her. I felt hopeful. I felt whole.
Years later, after I had met the Lord for myself, I sat down with my grandmother and said, “Can I ask you a question?” When she said I could, I said, “Four or five days after Uncle Stan died, you went into your room for a long time, and when you came out, you seemed . . . different. What happened to you in there?”
She paused, her light brown eyes glazing over as if she were staring back to that day. “Preston,” she said, “when Stan was murdered, I felt like I was going to die. My pain felt unbearable. I didn’t have the strength to be strong for my family, and I had never felt like that before. So I went into my room, and I said to the Lord, ‘Lord, either give me the strength to be strong for my family or take me to glory.’ And then I prayed. And, Preston, I began to feel the presence of God in a way I’ve never felt it before. The Lord visited me in my room that day, and his presence was so sweet that—at that moment—I entered into God’s rest, and I’ve been there ever since.”
Man, goose bumps began to swell on my skin. Then she said, “What we have to understand, Preston, is that Christians don’t suffer the way the rest of the world suffers. Before I went into my room, I was suffering like my sons and my daughter who did not know the Lord. But once I found his presence, I had hope. That’s what the Lord does, Preston. He gives us hope.”
I get it now. Sharing our faith with our families or close friends doesn’t look like it does with strangers out on the streets, where you’re often asking questions, debating, and quoting Scripture. It looks more like my grandmother. It’s living your faith consistently in a way that makes other people seek you out because you have something that they don’t. She had a God to run to who knew exactly how to tend to her grief. That’s what drew me to her when I was hurting. It’s what drew all of us to her—even if we didn’t fully understand why.
Adapted from How to Tell the Truth: The Story of How God Saved Me to Win Hearts—Not Just Arguments by Preston Perry, available now.
Preston Perry is a poet, performance artist, teacher, author of How to Tell the Truth and apologist from Chicago. Preston’s writing and teaching has been featured on ministry platforms such as The Gospel Coalition, the Poets in Autumn Tour, and Legacy Disciple. Preston is cohost of the popular podcast With the Perrys. He created Bold Apparel and the YouTube channel Apologetics with Preston Perry in order to engage the public in theological discourse. Preston and his wife, Jackie, reside in Atlanta with their four children: Eden, Autumn, Sage, and August.
